Just Cause #5: Was the severity of the discipline reasonably related to the infraction itself and in line with that usually administered, as well as to the seriousness of the employee's past record?

Arbitrator Lawrence Roberts finds cause to mitigate the removal imposed by management for a Letter Carrier scanning a picture of a bar code while not actually collecting the mail, rather than the scanning a bar code label while performing a collection. Short tenure, honest testimony and disparate treatment all factor into reducing the discharge to a seven day suspension.